Top 20 foodie cities in the nation

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Between its restaurants, coffee houses, breweries and quirky doughnut
shops, Portland, Oregon certainly warrants its status as one of the
nation’s top 10 most fun cities — and now the No. 1 best food city — according to a WalletHub travel ranking. (Sean
Pavone Photo/Thinkstock)

We’ve always known the San Francisco Bay Area was a top foodie region — a status cemented last fall when San Francisco bested New York City in the three-Michelin-star realm. But further vindication is always fun, this time from WalletHub, the personal-finance website, which put its data crunching to work ranking the nation’s best cities — and most affordable options — for foodies.

As you might imagine, spendy San Francisco did well on one ranking. The other? Not so much.

The survey compared 180 large U.S. cities in 29 key areas, from the cost of restaurant meals to the number of food festivals, breweries and wineries per capita. Portland topped the “best” list and came in at No. 17 on the most-affordable scale. We’re not going to argue with either of those things. That Oregon city has an incredible food scene, and its food trucks keep prices fairly reasonable.

Five California cities made the top 20 best list, with San Francisco at No. 2, followed by Los Angeles (5), San Diego (9), Sacramento (16) and Oakland (19). San Jose came in at No. 42, and Santa Rosa at 65. Other Bay Area and Wine Country cities and towns — including Yountville, which boasts six Michelin-starred restaurants within a few blocks — were not evaluated.

There were a few surprises: Orlando, the theme park capital, for example, was ranked sixth. (Clearly, there’s more to that city’s food scene than Mouseketeer waffles.)

And the affordability index offered dismaying, but unsurprising results: Out of 182 cities, San Jose was the 119th most affordable, Oakland the 121st and San Francisco the 127th.

Jackie Burrell is the editor and senior writer for the Mercury News and East Bay Times' Eat Drink Play section, which explores the West Coast's food, wine, cocktail and travel scene each week. An award-winning writer, Burrell joined the Bay Area News Group staff in 2000.